


What We Need

by AllThoseOtherWorlds



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Compliant, Gen, internalized ableism, s03e16 Virtual Systems Analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8532469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThoseOtherWorlds/pseuds/AllThoseOtherWorlds
Summary: Abed knows that he's scaring Annie, but he can't talk to her right now, so he becomes someone who can. Someone society actually needs.Virtual Systems Analysis from Abed's perspective, with a bit extra at the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Community.
> 
> I am autistic, but I am not Abed Nadir, so if there's anything you find inaccurate, please let me know. Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated!
> 
> This has a happy ending, but it also has a lot of internalized ableism and harmful messages from society in it, so be careful if those will bother you.

When Annie tells him to think of things through the filter of other people’s needs, Abed stops.

There is only one thought in his mind-

 _They don_ ' _t need me._

He knows he is having a shutdown, knows he is collapsed on the floor and probably scaring Annie, but he doesn’t move.

But then she tells him he is scaring her, and he knows he has to do something. He can’t talk to her right now; it’s just too much. _They don_ _’t need you; none of them do. You’re a burden on society, draining it and hurting it and as much as you might try to escape from it you can’t. You’re broken and society doesn’t want broken people like you._

But he has to do something, so he becomes someone that society _does_ want, someone that _Annie_ wants. He becomes Jeff.

And so he starts leading her through the world he knows she would rather have. Troy and Britta are happy together, Shirley is useful and helpful to Pierce, who is… no worse off than he is in real life, and Annie and Jeff can be together like he knows she wants.

Annie keeps looking for Abed, but he isn’t there. This is a world with real people, who exist and have a place (even Pierce, Abed knows, serves a purpose, in his own way). Abed doesn’t exist in this world, because people like Abed don’t get to exist in worlds like this - worlds like TV, where things make sense and work like they’re supposed to, and all the characters have meaning and usefulness.

When Annie pushes him, he writes Abed into the world as a patient - if there was one role he could play, it would be that. Abed could do that, because in stories like this patients were allowed to be broken, to remind normal people that at least they weren’t like _you_ , or didn’t have to deal with people like _you_.

Eventually, he gives Annie the file. “Control freak with no empathy,” he repeats. “People bend over backwards to cater to him.” She says it’s out of context, but he knows it’s not. The context was _him_ , and it was right. People talk about empathy like it’s the most important thing in the world, like it lets you read minds and never upset people ever. Like it’s some strange combination of superpowers that they barely explain or define. Abed has researched empathy probably more than Annie has, and he knows it’s not that simple, and he knows there’s more than one type, but he also knows he struggles with at least some of it.

He tries to distract them both by being Jeff again, committing to the role. It’s not enough, and Annie keeps pushing. He pushes back, reminds her that she wants to be with Jeff, that she could be happy and take a piece of this simulated world with her if she plays it right. She slips under his skin anyway, into his mind, and becomes Abed.

It’s wrong. Why would she be Abed? Why would anyone be Abed? Nobody _ever_ wants to be like Abed. (Well, there was one sarcastic comment from Jeff about his perception of the world coming out on DVD, but even Abed knew that was sarcasm).

He tries to make her stop, but then they’re trapped in a locker. Annie says to explain it, so he does. He tells her about how it’s a metaphor, about how it’s the back of the box where people like him get put when society finally decides to stop tolerating them.

Annie calls him maudlin. He doesn’t disagree, technically, but he also thinks that the facts are what they are. He won’t be a part of society in the same way everyone else will. Troy is obviously destined for greatness, despite his insecurities. Everyone else has a shot at doing something worthwhile with their lives, but society doesn’t think like Abed, doesn’t care about dreamatoriums and simulations and all the careful analysis Abed does. That’s what they have computers for, and those are easier to put up with.

Okay, so maybe he’s being a little maudlin.

Annie’s explanation about science fiction and predictions makes sense. Abed wasn’t expecting that, because mostly people don’t use his own framing of the world to communicate with him, rather than expecting him to use theirs. But he remembers how Jeff, despite his sarcasm, got the friendship crowns for him and Troy, and he thinks that maybe the study group is an exception.

When Annie tells him that, because everyone is worried about fitting in, Abed will always fit in, he wants to protest. He wants to say that he really _doesn_ _’t_ fit in, that there really is something different about him. But he doesn’t, because if he really thinks about it he knows that others are insecure too, and even if he never fits in anywhere else, at least he has the group.

With their conversation over, Annie breaks the atmosphere up and soon enough they’re no longer running simulations about Abed’s (non)-existence, but using the dreamatorium for what maybe it’s best at - playing.

Abed somehow doubts he’ll actually take up yoga, but maybe he doesn’t need to spend quite as much time doing simulations anymore. He still doesn’t have empathy - not the type Annie wants him to have - and despite what she probably believes, he won’t spontaneously develop it by trying to keep other people’s feelings in mind. Still, he resolves to try a little harder to not accidentally hurt people.

———

Later, when Annie and Troy are both in bed, Abed does some research online. It’s nothing he hasn’t researched before, really - he knows he’s probably autistic, and he knows a lot of the buzzwords - shutdown, meltdown, sensory overload, empathy - but he hasn’t really involved himself much in the community. He knows it’s there, but he’s never felt quite right about it. Before, he’d thought that he just wouldn’t fit in there, that he was different from “normal people” (he knows the world neurotypical, but he never bothered to use it) but not really that much like autistic people either.

Now, he wonders if that might just be more of the internalized ableism today’s incident brought to the surface.

He knows there are other people out there, probably like him. He knows there is a community - not of the parents of people like him, or the friends of people like him, or the _doctors_ of people like him - but of actual people. Like him.

He thinks that maybe it’s time he find them.

The whole thing started because he thought that nobody needed him. Now, as he scrolls through posts and essays by people who are not exactly like him, but who are at least different in similar ways, he realizes that people do. The word “neurodiversity” shows up, and he’s seen it before, but never really looked into it. Now he does, and it makes sense. Diversity in a system strengthens it, and he can understand that, at least a little.

It’s a place to start.


End file.
